No Writing Workshops Scheduled At This Time

(hopefully early 2023)

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4-Week Opinion Writing Class in August

MondayS, August 8-29, 3-5pm ET on Zoom

You’ve got lots of opinions. But do you know what to do with them besides get into fights on social media? This course will guide you through a step-by-step process of turning a germ of an idea into a coherent, well-informed, and lively (maybe even splashy) opinion article. (No guarantees on viral.) Whether your idea is a political argument, an observation about society, a call to action, or just a personal pet peeve, there are specific techniques that help you to get your point across while also delivering an engaging—even entertaining—piece of writing. With an emphasis on bringing nuance and empathy to hot button topics, we will talk about finding news pegs, incorporating research and reporting, using humor, avoiding clichés, and working with editors throughout the pitching and publishing process. Perhaps most importantly, we will discuss how to overcome fears of social media backlash in order to say what you truly want to say.

Ideally, you will write at least one draft of a 700 to 1200-word op-ed during the course, for which you will receive verbal feedback from me and your fellow students. There might be a few light reading assignments but there will be no in-class writing. The goal is to have something to submit to an editor when everyone’s back after Labor Day.

What you bring: Ideas for at least two opinion pieces that you would like to be ready to pitch and/or send to an editor by the end of the course.

What you get: I will play the role of editor and help you figure out what you want to say and how to say it in a way that only you can. Editors ask themselves this question: why is this writer the only person who can or should say this exact thing in this exact way? We will answer that before they can ask it.

Dates: Four consecutive Mondays. August 8, 15, 22, 29

Time: 3-5pm ET on ZOOM.

Fee: $475

How To Apply: Send me a message with subject heading OPED COURSE telling a little about yourself and your goals. You may include links to some of your work if you’d like, but no formal writing sample is necessary.

Application deadline: July 25, 2022

Meghan Daum's Private Workshops

WHY A PRIVATE WORKSHOP

Whether it’s a short personal essay or a book-length memoir, writing about yourself is a tricky thing, Get it wrong and you can be branded a solipsist, a whiner, a shameless exploiter of yourself and others, or, gasp . . . confessional. On the other hand, get it right and you can touch readers in ways you didn’t think possible.

I've been lucky enough to forge a career around personal writing. It’s by no means the only kind of work I do, but it’s what readers tend to remember the most. Part of my success was due to timing. When I started out, I had the luxury of taking as long as I needed to get something right and of working with topnotch editors that could make my writing even better. Readers, too, read more carefully and with greater generosity of spirit. There were no comment boards, no social media, no bloggers ready to rip my work apart before they’d even read it. Thanks to all of this, I took risks in my writing. Without constantly looking over my shoulder in anticipation of criticism or a Twitter smackdown, I was able to wrestle with sensitive topics and express complicated and often controversial ideas. I was able to write from a place of vulnerability but also control.

In the years since, I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of students find their own voices, excavate their most original and daring ideas and tell their stories with the kind of energy, honesty and craft that will help take them to the next artistic and professional levels.

In early 2018, I began offering that guidance in a private, weekend-long workshop in my home. After a suspension for COVID I brought the class back in person and on Zoom in the fall of 2021.

Who it's for

Intermediate to advanced writers. These distinctions are difficult to quantify, but it would be great if you’ve spent at least a few years thinking seriously about your writing and doing as much of it as you can.

Maybe you’re working on a book length memoir. Maybe you have a draft of a personal essay you’re looking to polish. Maybe you have detailed notes for a project and need guidance on how to shape those notes or what form the project should take. In any of these cases, you could benefit from the workshop.

You need not have published, but a desire to be published in the future and a familiarity with the workshop format is a plus. (You’ll be expected to have read your classmates’ submissions and come prepared with constructive verbal feedback.)

Space is limited (even more so now due to COVID) and the class is admissions based. Please send no more than 15 pages of personal writing along with a note explaining your creative and professional goals.

NOTE: Plenty of indoor and outdoor space in L.A. location. We’ll try to be outdoors as much as possible. Hugo, the friendly if drooly Newfoundland, will likely be in attendance.

WHat you'Ll get out of it

Think of this as a workshop combined with an extensive, free-ranging and highly interactive craft talk lead by me, plus a special guest or two. It is not “generative.” That is to say that other than a few short exercises you will not be generating any new writing on the premises. The goal is to come out of the weekend with new ideas, a roadmap for making your pages as good as they can be and maybe even a new and different sense of yourself as a writer.

Your pages will receive a solid hour of discussion in the workshop format. As fruitful as that discussion should be, it’s my experience in courses like these that inspiration is just as likely to happen during spontaneous conversations as during workshop discussions. So think of it as one hour of focused critique of your pages and 12 more hours of fascinating and equally fruitful conversations with fellow writers (sense of humor is a must, by the way).

NEW FEATURE: At some point in the weeks before the class, you will (if you wish) have a 30-minute private Zoom meeting with me so we can get to know one another and talk about your work and your goals.

Each weekend features visits (Zoom or in person) from writers and industry professionals. Guests have included authors Kate Bolick, Nina Burleigh, Sloane Crosley, Susan Dominus, Steve Friedman, Cathi Hanauer, Julie Klam, Tim Kreider, Dinah Lenney, and Dani Shapiro. We've also had visits from literary agents Brettne Bloom and Andrew Blauner, and editors from Simon & Schuster, The New York Times, Longreads, and more.

The weekend includes light breakfast items and catered lunches Saturday and Sunday. Coffee, soft drinks and snacks—including chocolate — available at all times.

When: April 30 - May 1, 2022 10am to 4pm

Where: Meghan’s home in Northeast Los Angeles

Fee: $1200 ($300 deposit due upon admission, balance due one week before class)

Application: Send up to 15 pages along with a note stating your creative and professional goals to meghan@meghandaum.com. Deadline April 8, 2022

About Meghan

Meghan Daum is the creator and host of The Unspeakable Podcast and the author of five books, including The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture War, which was published in 2019 and named a New York Times Notable Book as well as being a New York Post top ten book of the year. She is also the author of the collection of original essays The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, which won the 2015 PEN Centre Award for Creative Nonfiction. She edited of the New York Times bestseller Selfish-Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not To Have Kids. Meghan was a recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim fellowship and a 2016 NEA fellowship. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue and The Atlantic, among other publications.

Meghan is a member of the adjunct faculty in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and has also been a visiting professor in the graduate Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa. She has taught essay and memoir workshops at The Aspen Writers’ Festival, The Virginia Quarterly Review Writers’ Conference, The Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop, The Writer’s Hotel Conference, the Indiana University Writers’ Conference and The New York Times School of Education among many other places.

From 2016 to 2018, Meghan wrote the Egos column in The New York Times Book Review. This column reviewed new memoirs and taught her a lot about what works and what doesn’t when writing about oneself. (Lesson one: sometimes a personal essay does the job far better than a whole book could ever do.) She still reviews occasionally for the Book Review.